


we monsters have been our own historians

by Serie11



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Typical Bleakness, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Death, Gen, Killer Robots, Minor Canonical Character(s), Pre-Canon, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, aka elisabet works until she drops where she stands, but also nice robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 09:31:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17118797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: “Thou hast shown me wonders: thou hast shown me thoseMighty Pre-Adamites who walked the earthOf which ours is the wreck: thou hast pointed outMyriads of starry worlds, of which our ownIs the dim and remote companion, inInfinity of life: thou hast shown me shadowsOf that existence with the dreaded nameWhich my sire brought us—Death; thou hast shown me muchBut not all: show me where Jehovah dwells,In his especial Paradise—or thine:Where is it?”— Lord Byron.





	we monsters have been our own historians

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nemonus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/gifts).



> Title is taken from [this story](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_fairy_tales_of_science/The_Age_of_Monsters), which I find eerily applicable to HZD. I haven’t read HDM in a few years, so if there’s any mistakes in the lore that’s on me!
> 
>  
> 
> [Song for this fic is here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6T_jOpoXfM)

 

The last African Grey Parrot dies on a Tuesday.

It almost passes unnoticed among the thousands of other species that die out on that day, except for a small email link Travis sends to her. One notification that makes Elisabet stare at her computer numbly for an entire, precious minute. Aevum pecks at her ear, as disturbed as she is.

_Now you’re both one of a kind. Lucky that you’ve stuck around, huh? Wouldn’t want you dying too soon. Be annoying for the rest of us._

Elisabet doesn’t know how to respond to the email, so she deletes it, clicking the trash button harder than she needs to. He’s being ridiculous. She’s sure that there are other people out there with African Grey daemons, and there’s no way to know if truly all the animals have gone. It’s cruel, sending her that – but she didn’t hire Travis to be kind. Of course, he had to tell her in a way that would make full use of his bitter, self-absorbed personality. She almost moves the email back to her inbox again, just to send him a tirade full of her frustration and the helpless despair that he’d made her feel, but instead she takes a deep breath in. Aevum pecks at her ear again, harder.

“Back to work, I know,” Elisabet mutters.

She can’t afford to let any news at all stop her now.

* * *

 

She’s been typing for so long that at this point the keystrokes are more of a lullaby than anything she remembers her mother singing her. _Tap tap tap_ goes her fingers, and on her shoulder Aevum grinds his beak, his concentration matched to hers. She thinks that maybe, maybe _this_ time she’ll click the initialise button and something will be born, a program to take the place of the offspring that she’ll never have the chance to raise. This project is going to have to be her legacy to the world.

Some part of her vaguely registers the knock on her door, but it’s not even a secondary thought – more like a nuisance that is relegated to the very back of her mind, ignored as soon as she’s processed it. The second knock is as quickly dealt with as the first. Elisabet has no time to let herself get distracted over something as small as an irrelevant noise. She has work to do.

Her door opens, but she only realises when a hand comes down on the shoulder that Aevum isn’t perched on, and she jumps so badly that she knocks over the long empty glass that’s sitting next to her elbow. It shatters on the ground with a sharp crack, and Elisabet glares up at Samina condemningly, for making her break the glass and her concentration.

“Elisabet,” she says, her voice as smooth and calm as ever. “I can see that you haven’t logged any sleep in the last fifty hours. You need to rest, my friend.” Hikma, Samina’s Caspian Cobra daemon, slips in and out of her headscarf smoothly. He’s as put together and proper as Samina is – Elisabet has never heard his voice. Aevum likes to keep to himself, but he does talk to her when others are around. Hikma and Samina have always been far too polite to ever do something like that.

Elisabet swallows and works her mouth because for a moment she forgets how to speak, still too caught up in her thoughts. “I don’t,” she finally spits. It comes out far harsher than she means, but by the time she’s said it, it’s too late to take it back. Samina’s expression doesn’t change. Aevum sighs softly, his breath on her ear.

“You know that no one does their best work while exhausted. I can provide numerous studies to support me, but I shouldn’t need to because you already know that I am right.”

“I’m almost done,” Elisabet says flatly. She has no time for formalities or niceties. Project Zero Dawn needs this starting foundation if she’s ever going to get it past step one. She turns back to her computer, refusing to acknowledge that Samina’s hand is still on her shoulder. “Look! Look at this.”

She furiously stabs at her keyboard, like every keystroke has personally done her an extreme offense. Samina makes a low sound in the back of her throat, accentuated by the rustling of scales, but Elisabet is already pressing the button that will run the code. And, she thinks, that’s the last time she’s going to have to do that.

Her computer whirrs, complaining at the immense codebase it has to wrangle into shape. Elisabet waits with her breath held, as she finally sees her screen go green to indicate that it has successfully run.

“Hello?” she whispers, mouth dry. She wants a response. More than anything in her life, she wants this response.

“Good evening Elisabet Sobeck,” a voice says, coming tinnily out of the speakers on the computer. “Process GAIA has been successfully initiated. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Samina says something in Arabic, sounding awed.

“No, GAIA,” Elisabet says, on the verge of tears. “It’s _my_ pleasure to meet you. Please, call me Elisabet.”

* * *

 

Trying to sleep after that seems ludicrous. She’s just made the biggest step forward in AI engineering _ever_ and she’d stepped away from it almost immediately. She has no idea how she’s even supposed to consider the idea of sleep, let alone commit to it. Also, she has an ulcer on her cheek that she hadn’t noticed until she’d lay down, and it’s kind of driving her crazy right now.

Samina had been excited as well, but after Elisabet had gave GAIA several terabytes of data to look through and learn, the other woman had herded her off to her room. Elisabet had connected GAIA to her Focus in an act of defiance, but she hasn’t had the nerve to say anything yet. To start a conversation. She still can’t quite believe that she’d succeeded.

On his perch, Aevum ruffles his feathers restlessly. “Rest,” he murmurs lowly. He can’t sleep until she does, but she feels like a livewire, thrumming with energy and ready to burst and crackle at the slightest hint of an interaction.

“Elisabet? My sensors suggest that you are not sleeping.”

Elisabet sucks in a breath, holds it, and lets it go slowly before she answers.

“That’s… yes. I am awake.”

“If the data Dr Ebadji gave to me is correct, you have not slept in over two days. That is suboptimal for a human.”

“I know,” Elisabet whispers. “Have you looked at everything I gave you?”

“It is being processed, and will be integrated into my system within four hours,” GAIA replies. “But one piece of data needs further clarification.”

“You can ask me anything,” Elisabet says, feeling almost giddy. She _did_ it. She really, actually did it.

“From what I have been able to ascertain, all humans have a daemon, correct?”

“Yes,” she confirms.

“Some humans believe that the daemon is a physical manifestation of the soul. However, as an AI I do not possess one. Did you take this into account in your creation of me?”

Elisabet stares at the roof, very awake all of a sudden. “Yes, and no,” she says cautiously. “No one knows how daemons are formed. When a human dies, their daemon dies as well, collapsing into Dust. But no one knows what Dust is, or how to recreate it or store it. And… a daemon is a reflection of the person they are partnered to. I could not assign you a daemon any more than you could give me one.”

“Interesting,” GAIA says. “Does that mean you believe that a daemon is the soul of a human, then?”

“If a daemon is killed or is taken too far from their human, then the human normally dies,” Elisabet says. “However there have been… unnatural cases, where the two have been forcibly split. It’s called intercession. I think that if a human and daemon can live, separate to one another, that only the existence of a daemon is necessary for a human to be alive. If such a thing as a ‘soul’ did exist, and existed in the form of a daemon, then all cases of intercession should have resulted in death.” She hesitates. “Just because you don’t have a daemon doesn’t mean you’re not alive, GAIA. You’re thinking, and learning, all by yourself. Animals and plants don’t have daemons, but they’re still living things. You’re just… not human.”

“That is true,” GAIA confirms. “Thank you for answering my questions, Elisabet. Now, please sleep.”

Aevum clicks his beak to indicate that he agrees with GAIA. Elisabet turns her Focus off and puts it on Aevum’s shelf, underneath his perch.

“Do you think I’m right?” she asks him in a murmur.

Her daemon doesn’t reply until she’s almost on the edge of sleep. Sometimes she thinks he knows more than he has ever told her – but then she chides herself for doubting him.

“There is little evidence to either end,” he says, voice deep and calming. “Even though your argument has credit, I would suggest you consider the possibility that a soul could exist independent of the body, even without the connection between a daemon and a human.”

“Do you really think so?” Elisabet whispers. For all her self-proclaimed determination and courage, the thought of losing Aevum scares her like few other things do. She can deal with the thought of dying with the rest of her team, she can deal with kidnapping her specialised scientists to help the work, she can deal with knowing what Herres is doing with Operation Enduring Victory, but her strength fails when the thinks of something happening to Aevum without her there to share his fate. They belong together. It’s just the way things should be.

“Maybe,” Aevum replies neutrally. “Now rest. Even our AI can tell that we need it.”

“Okay,” Elisabet concedes. “Okay.”

* * *

 

She’s in the middle of deciding what data to feed to GAIA next when her Focus rings. She taps it when she sees who the caller is. Patrick doesn’t call her unless it’s a major update, and since he’s in charge of the new human population, this is something she wants to hear.

“Something happen?” Elisabet asks sharply. She’s short on time – she’s sure he is, too. They all are. She can’t remember the last time someone said hello or good morning to her.

“The genetic plan for the first seven generations of humans post reintegration has been finalised, and the sample team have gathered 74 percent of the genetic samples needed to fulfil my plan. ELEUTHIA Cradle facilities one, three, seven, eight, ten and eleven have been successfully built, packed, and sealed. I have also decided against any cloning to be done, with the exception of your plan, if it is your wish to implement it.”

Elisabet sighs. “It is not, but thank you for your support. Is everything else running smoothly?”

“Yes,” Patrick says. “Though I am still in doubt that we will finish everything in time.”

“We can only do our best,” Elisabet says quietly. Patrick doesn’t hang up, even after they sit in silence for a few seconds. She has the feeling that this type of break is more important than sleep.

“How is the AI?”

“GAIA,” Elisabet says, pride coming into her voice. “She is learning so fast. I still can’t believe it.”

“I can,” Patrick says. “You are the brightest of us all, Elisabet.”

She rubs her hands on her pants in a nervous motion. Something has been eating at her for a while now, and maybe Patrick is the only one she can talk to about it. “Do you… Do you think we should even be implementing ELEUTHIA at all? Do humans really deserve another chance?”

Patrick sighs. “I ask myself the same thing sometimes. But I know you believe that they do. Why else would you be doing all of this? You want life to have a second chance. You think humans deserve it.”

Elisabet sighs. “I do,” she acknowledges. “Okay. Thanks for the update, Patrick.”

“My pleasure,” Patrick says warmly. The line clicks and she puts both hands back on her desk. Her arms are pale against the metal. She can’t remember the last time she saw the sun.

The decision not to clone all the alphas was hard, but in the end she suspects it is the right one. GAIA will have new people to talk to eventually, and she doesn’t want to place the burden of Zero Dawn on people who have never given consent for it, even if one of those people is her.

But still, she can’t help but wonder what her clone would be like.

Aevum makes a disgruntled sound from where he’s sitting on her shoulder.

“You’re right,” she tells him, and places her fingers on her keyboard yet again.

* * *

 

She’s moving from one meeting to another when she runs into Travis in the hallways. His hyena slinks along behind him, eyes intelligent. Elisabet can’t help but notice that while her eyes are bright, her coat is dull and ragged, bits falling off and fading into Dust when she brushes against the edge of the wall or Travis’s legs.

“Elisabet,” Travis says, in that sickly sweet voice of his that she hates. He does good work, and she doesn’t want anyone else working on HADES, but sometimes she wishes he could be a bit more pleasant. Even so, she’s not going to ask any more of him than what he’s already giving.

“Tate,” she says tersely. “How’s the work?”

She knows that in the past he would have criticised her for not asking how he is or what he’s been doing, but now the dark bags under his eyes tell a different story. He’s exhausted, and she can see that written over every inch of him, from his undone shoelaces to his greasy hair to the daemon that looks like she’s falling apart by his side.

“Work’s going great,” Travis drawls. “I knew you only kept you around for my brain.”

“It is the most useful part of you,” Elisabet quips back at him. Travis waves her off.

“Geez, you’d think a gal should be able to see quality when it’s right in front of her. But never you mind – I’m sure you’ve got high and mighty important Elisabet Sobeck only things to be doing, so I’ll leave you to do them.”

Travis walks past her, his hyena lurking in his shadow. Elisabet looks after him for a second before continuing on her way. Travis can deal with what she’s giving him – and just like his hyena, he will make sure HADES can manage the remnants of a shattered carcass. It shouldn’t matter that the carcass will be the planet instead of a hyena’s next meal.

* * *

 

She’s fuming, hands shaking and blood pounding. She can’t quite see beyond the tunnel vision of what’s right in front of her, so Aevum flies ahead and makes sure that no one walks into her path. She’s going back to her sleeping quarters because she can’t be anywhere else right now – she can’t focus on the work, or talk to anyone that isn’t Aevum, or be in public when she has her inevitable break down. She needs to be strong. She’s the steel spine of this project. She’s more than aware that without her, Project Zero Dawn has no hope of surviving. She must persevere.

She slams her door behind her, and collapses on her bed, leaning over so she can put her head in her hands and cover her face so she can make any expression she wants without the risk of anyone seeing it or it being recorded anywhere. Aevum hides under her hair, a move that also speaks to how disturbed he is. Hiding back there is a habit back from her childhood, when she still had long hair. He would duck under there to hide from the children that would tease her relentlessly for being too smart, too bookish, too separate from what they saw as normal. Too different for their country tastes.

“A stupid mistake,” she hisses. “All because of one stupid mistake. How can they be so stupid? Does this project not matter to them at all?”

Two of the ELEUTHIA bunkers had been exposed to the swarm in quick succession of each other, a flaw in the design that wasn’t noticed in the final checks. Not because of how the Cradles themselves had been designed, but because of short cuts taken during the work, to make everything come together in time. They’d all had no choice but to watch hopelessly as a third Cradle had been discovered and devoured. Patrick had been far more visibly devastated than her, but if he hadn’t fallen apart then she would have suspected there was something psychologically wrong with him. After working on their projects for months, after living them for over a year, she suspects that all the alphas and even their betas and gammas have little else that they care about left.

“Stupid,” she says, and forms a fist to hit her bed with. It bounces off uselessly, not even hurting at all to take her mind away from the idiocy that has cost thousands of hours of work. She ignores her tears and resists the urge to grab her pillow and scream into it – she doesn’t have the time to even break down fully. She should have a shower. That would make her feel better, and she could cry in there, and then when she got out she could be composed, and put together and serene and everything she is not.

“Elisabet, is everything alright?”

Elisabet starts up a litany of curses, but GAIA doesn’t need to hear them so she keeps them trapped behind her teeth. “We lost three Cradles, and might lose another two if their issues aren’t addressed before the horde gets to them.”

“I have opened that data package,” GAIA confirms. “It is… unfortunate. Is that why you are crying?”

“Yes,” she says listlessly. “You don’t have to pay any attention to me. I’ll be fine in an hour.”

GAIA doesn’t reply, and Elisabet takes that to mean that she has left her alone. She stands and swipes a hand over her face to get rid of most of her tears and heads towards her bathroom. Being Alpha Prime nets her some advantages, and having her own personal ensuite is one of them. She has no idea how most of the others cope.

“I do not wish to leave you alone,” GAIA says suddenly. “I have examined several data packets that inform me that you should talk about your emotions and that it will make you feel better. I am here to listen, Elisabet.”

Elisabet puts one pale hand against the wall, spreading her fingers as wide as she can. She wonders if the horde looks like this – one starting point, a line of destruction, an end point. But unlike her hand, the horde won’t stop when its reach has been extended – it has no reach. As long as it has fuel, it has the power to keep on going.

“I’m angry,” she says, but her voice is flat and emotionless. “Patrick doesn’t deserve to have his work destroyed like that. And if our first efforts, with the most time behind them, don’t work, then what hope do the rest of us have? How are the other building projects meant to come through when they’re pressed for time, resources and manpower? Is this all for nothing?”

“You know of the issue now, and can implement a patch on the remaining ELEUTHIA facilities,” GAIA says. “You cannot pass judgement on different circumstances using incomplete and incompatible data. The other facilities can be constructed in time. We have run the numbers together. It can be done.”

Elisabet looks at her hand, the path of destruction, and doesn’t say anything.

* * *

 

Ayomide meets her for their discussion of the MINERVA towers in one of the few meeting rooms in the alpha site. The Japanese woman is the oldest alpha, but Elisabet would call her the most cunning. With a past of hacking into almost every code base around the world, Ayomide had been the one leading a project before Zero Dawn had started, to crack the code of the Faro machines. That project has long been discarded, but she had taken to Elisabet’s offer of unlimited time to crack them eagerly. She’s already personally written the algorithm that will one day deactivate the horde. It’s already running, with the slimmest, tiniest chance that out of sheer random chance they’ll find the deactivation code before Zero Day. Elisabet has never let herself believe even for a second that it will happen, because she suspects that having that hope will break her.

The main objective of the MINERVA team now is the design and organisation of the building of the transmission towers that will broadcast the signal. The last thing they want to do is miss any bots and have them destroy GAIA’s work.

Elisabet sits at the meeting room table and brings up her holo display with all her data. Ayomide is old school in that she prefers face to face meetings, and Elisabet humours her because sometimes these meetings are the only times she leaves her rooms in weeks.

“You look unwell,” Ayomide says, no hint of an accent in her voice. Her bright dart frog daemon sits like a broach on her lapel, a silent warning as to the type of person he belongs to.

“We all do,” Elisabet says, tired. “Have you decided on prime locations?”

“I’ve already sent the file to you. And I’ve talked to GAIA about it. She seems to think that she could send probes to all locations prior to the building to test for suitability. A lot could change over the time it takes to discover the key.”

Elisabet nods. “That’s a good idea. How is your team?”

“I think my team is the least stressed of you all,” Ayomide states. “Our main objective is complete. None of the rest of you will be able to say the same for quite some time.”

“Are you sure your code can discover the key?” Elisabet asks, for maybe the fiftieth time. This is the crux of MINERVA – if Ayomide and GAIA cannot shut down the Faro bots, the rest of the work here is done in vain.

“Oh Elisabet,” Ayomide says warmly. Her frog shifts slightly on her collar. Elisabet finds her eyes drawn to it – even though she knows it has no poison, the bright colours still convey a warning to the animalistic parts of her brain. “There’s never been a code I can’t crack. Even if it takes till after my death, I will find the key to this one too.”

* * *

 

“I’m telling you, the database is complete, Elisabet. The APOLLO database is complete.”

Samina sounds like she’s on the verge of crying. Elisabet leans back in her chair, eyes still tracing the information her holoport is giving her. She can do that and listen to Samina at the same time.

“All I need to do now is finish the curriculum and decide on some of the placements of the more sensitive pieces of data… But we are no longer adding to the databanks.”

“Total final database size?”

“It’s larger than you wanted,” Samina warns. “But it’s all necessary. All so necessary.”

“And the information about daemons? Did you decide to move that?”

“Yes, I have. With the database being as large as it is, there is a risk of corruption. If that happens, the children will still need to know about their daemons, and their daemons will still need to take a shape. So I have loaded information on one hundred and six species into the dataspaces of the servitors, including multiple pictures of each animal, as well as feeding habits, typical behaviours and habitat. Even if the unthinkable happens and a connection to the main APOLLO server is lost, they will still be able to shape their daemons into many different animals.”

Elisabet hums. “I agree, it’s a necessary step.”

“Dr Brochard-Klein didn’t like me stepping on his toes to take up that much space on the servitors, but even he knows that it is important to have that type of knowledge on hand. Margo was accommodating with the design of the servitors, so that has been fully implemented already.”

Elisabet bites back her instinctive response to ask why none of them consulted her. She knows she can’t approve every decision, can’t always be looking over the shoulders of her alphas. There’s far too much work that she needs to do, without having to also be double and triple checking their decisions – and she agrees that this is a good idea. This is one thing that she thinks should have backups upon backups. No one knows what would happen if the children of the future had no animals to impress upon their daemons. No one wants to find out, either.

“Patrick was involved with other daemon experiments in the past. He has experience with malformed daemons. I doubt he wants to inflict that upon his project.”

“I also doubt that,” Samina murmurs. “They will have everything they need to prosper. We have ensured that.”

“Right,” Elisabet says, but she can’t even convince herself that everything will go to plan.

* * *

 

Crisis control has very different connotations when the crisis in question is threatening the only chance of survival for every living thing on the planet.

“Report!” Elisabet hisses, resisting the urge to grab her holoscreen. Disrupting her information flow would hardly help her anxiety.

“Loss of beta site has been reported,” GAIA says.

“The swarm wasn’t even reported near that!” Elisabet cries. She jams her Focus on and runs out to the main information hub, where everyone is staring in horror at the central terminal. The signal that usually runs uninterrupted from the beta production site is offline, and there has been no further communications in over three minutes.

Margo is sitting with James, who is in charge of technology around the alpha site, and both are bent over James’s computer looking solemn. Elisabet storms over there, her footsteps loud in the stillness of the room.

“What happened?” she hisses. Aevum has his feathers fully puffed up to look as large as possible, defensive and aggressive.

“The swarm must have changed direction suddenly during the night,” Margo says tightly. “They were scheduled to pass nearby but the base itself was supposed to be in no danger.”

Elisabet puts a hand over her face. Half of the work was being done at beta. With it gone, their output would be dramatically slowed.

“When was their last full backup and last partial backup?” she asks, hand still over her face.

“Full backup was done sixteen hours ago, partial four hours ago,” James says.

“Pull everything you can from the partial backup and send it all to the relevant stations.” Elisabet takes a breath in and turns so she can address the whole room. Most people are already staring at her. “Everyone! Get back to your stations. Your workload just doubled. Alphas, distribute roles from the beta site to your gammas. Gammas, distribute to your workers. Get moving. Now.”

“But –” a younger man tries to say. Elisabet doesn’t know his name. The cat by his side has all of its fur standing on end.

“They’re dead,” she says, looking him in the eyes. “The work remains to be done. There is no time to waste. Do not let their sacrifice be in vain – do not let Project Zero Dawn fail because of what we knew could happen. What will possibly happen, to all of us.”

The room is dead silent. Elisabet turns and walks away from them all.

The work remains. And she has never been one to shirk her duties.

* * *

 

As the days until Zero Day click into the single digits, Elisabet feels like she has more work than at any other stage of the process. She has to approve the final modifications to APOLLO and AETHER, fix a bug she found in GAIA’s code, wrangle Ted, manage the other alphas as they and their teams start to unravel under the stress, and contain her own mounting certainty that no one is going to finish in time. The HADES and MINERVA sub functions are the only ones that are completely finished, and Travis has been on a mission to finish all the alcohol left in the base for the last three days. Elisabet had asked GAIA to restrict his permissions so he can only send emails to her and the other alphas, but even just having to look at his communications makes her want to dive into the bottle right beside him.

She saves her code snippet and waits for GAIA to digest it.

“I think that has solved the problem,” GAIA says, and Elisabet exhales in relief. GAIA has done some minor modifications of her own code, but she’s always asked Elisabet to approve them before implementation. It’s fantastic and Elisabet is excited to see that she can adapt to different circumstances if needed, but she still prefers to maintain GAIA herself. She’s been on her last nerve for the longest time, and every time there’s a problem with GAIA she jumps on that nerve herself, endlessly, until it’s fixed.

Later today is the move to GAIA Prime and the last of the installation in the main facility. Zero Day is nine dawns away.

“Do you think it will work?” she asks quietly. “Do you think we can do this?” Her one fear, going into this, is that she would push all these hard working people for no reason – that she would give them false hope and drive them to the point of breaking, only to see Project Zero Dawn fail.

“All the pieces are in place,” GAIA says thoughtfully. “I am functional, and so are my subordinate functions. There is a significant chance that this project will indeed succeed. You will have to leave the rest to me – you will have to trust me. All of this is all thanks to you, Elisabet. You are the core of this. Without you, it never could have existed. _I_ could never have existed. And for that, on behalf of the world, I thank you.”

Tears prick at the sides of her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. “I trust you, GAIA,” she says. “Watching you grow over these past few months has been my one true pleasure in life. You’re everything I hoped you could be, and more. Every day you surprise me in the best ways. I’m so proud of you. And… I believe that you can do the impossible. You can bring life back to this planet.”

“The impossible has been made possible by you,” GAIA says.

“By us,” Elisabet whispers.

“All of us,” Aevum murmurs.

“Let’s go,” Elisabet says, determination filling her. “We just have to make the last leap to GAIA Prime. One final jump before the swarm.”

“Your transportation is ready,” GAIA informs her.

Elisabet grabs her bag, which has a few changes of clothes and one rolled up photo of her and her mother, nestles Aevum securely on her shoulder, and walks out the door.

Her room, which has seen her tears and her screams and her frustration and her joys, is left empty behind her.


End file.
